NICOL'S GEOLOGY OF SCOTLAND. 139 



the chapter concludes with a few notes concerning the Isle of 

 Wight. 



The next chapter gives a geological account of the road from 

 London to Brighton, and the structure of the Brighton Cliffs ; we 

 then have a few notes concerning the Great Western Railway and 

 the neighbourhood of Bath, and next, a series of excursions in 

 Derbyshire, commencing with a notice of that portion of the Bir- 

 mingham and Midland Counties Railway between London and the 

 station at Amber Gate, by way of Leicester. This latter trip is 

 illustrated by a number of engravings and is given in some detail, 

 and the chapter concludes with a short notice of the vicinity of 

 Charnwood Forest. 



A few names of dealers in fossils in several towns in England 

 are added as useful to the collector, when hurriedly passing through 

 a district interesting for its fossils. 



This work is very neatly got up, and the illustrations, although 

 unequal, are for the most part sufficient. Some of them are ex- 

 tremely beautiful in point of drawing and engraving. 



D. T. A. 



IV. Guide to the Geology of Scotland, with a Geological Map 

 and Plates. By James Nicol. 1 vol. pp. 272. Edinburgh, 

 1844. 



This work is principally intended to exhibit in a systematic form 

 the knowledge already attained and published on the subject of 

 the Geology of Scotland. It is therefore entirely descriptive, and 

 mentions in detail many phenomena chiefly of local interest. The 

 author commences with an account of the Physical Geography 

 of Scotland, and then states in very considerable detail and in 

 regular order the Geology of the three districts of the country : — 

 the southern district as marked by the rounded oblong hills with 

 flat tabular summits composed of rocks for the most part altered 

 and referable to the older Palaeozoic period (for which the author 

 retains the name transition) ; the central district containing the 

 great carboniferous deposits ; and the northern district consisting 

 chiefly of gneiss, quartz rock, and clay slate, fringed along the line 

 of coast by the Old red sandstone. To the accounts of these di- 

 visions is appended a notice of the Scottish Islands and a general 

 summary of the whole subject ; and the work concludes with a 

 list of Scottish fossils, imperfect, no doubt, as the author acknow- 

 ledges, but valuable as the first catalogue, and affording the means 

 of correction and improvement. 



By far the most important in an economical sense of the dif- 

 ferent formations developed in Scotland is the carboniferous series 

 in the central district, occupying on the whole about 1750 square 

 miles ; but the most persistent and in some respects the most in- 

 teresting bed is the Old red sandstone, of which there are nearly 

 5000 square miles. But the unusually large proportion of granite 



